day 4 and still a disaster

[MomBiz]

We are on day 4 of potty training DS 2.9. It's a nightmare.
I genuinely thought he would fly it but man, was I wrong!!!!!

Day 1, after an awful morning/afternoon, in the evening he stared to get really excited about it. kept running to the potty, doing a few dribbles of wee in it and cheering for himself etc.
Since day 2, we've barely had a wee in the potty. I have to coax him onto the potty with my phone or something on the telly when I can tell he needs to go and then he will sit for 10 minutes and then do his wee on the floor 30 seconds after he gets off the potty.
He does seem to have a huge awareness of what he's doing and I'm trying to stay very calm and cool each time so he isn't getting a reaction from me and willl eventually get bored if that's the goal..... but almost finished day 4, we are nowhere closer than day 1 (further away in fact) I have a week off work now and I'm terrified we'll still be here when I have to go back.
He's almost 3 and starts montessori in Sept so I don't feel like pausing it and revisiting in a few months is an option!!!!

Has anyone been here? with no improvement after 4 days of consistent trying, will this get better????

It will get better. Four days is not a long time. It is a new experience and he's playing, it's a game at the moment.

Can you build it into a routine so he knows when to expect to go on the potty? Eg get him up and go on the potty. Before he eats. Before you leave the house etc

Potty training was a long time ago for me so someone with more recent experience will be along shortly.....

It’s not necessarily the way the books advise it but some chocolate button bribery worked wonders with mine…

Breathe and lower your expectations. If you’re staying in the house all day it will feel more intense so pack lots of spare clothes and head out. It’s a pain to keep changing them but it’s doable and it helps them understand. He will get it. Nursery will help and he might even be better there than at home.

You can take a child to a potty but you can’t force them to pee. The less pressure the better..

Pausing for a few months would be fine. If he's really not ready now you will just create a huge block around toileting by persevering too much.

Try it for another week or two and if he still doesn't really get it I'd pause.

Did you mean that he doesn't have a great awareness of what he's doing or have you got the sense he's messing about?

If you can tell when he needs a wee, can you wait till he's either just about to, or just started, and pick him up and pop him straight onto the potty immediately? This is easier if he's naked from the waist down. It gets them used to being on the potty when the wee is happening so they are (mostly) weeing in the right place.

My child is almost exactly the same age, and we start potty training last week. Like you, it was a disaster until I just went to outright bribery and said he’d get a sweet when he pee’d on the potty. Bingo!

Very few accidents since…

I agree with the previous poster. I don't care what the books say literally everyone I know used bribery when potty training.

My advice would be stop taking him and leave the potty there to see if he initiates, if he isn't then I would pause for a few months.

We potty trained our daughter in Feb half term when she was 2.10. It was similar to your start and we were all but ready to give up and then she just got it. She was fully aware of needing a wee but she’s extremely headstrong so the more we tried to get her on the potty the more she resisted. We just let her be and then she started running in shouting wee wee.
She’s now near perfect with wees and is on the big toilet but we’re only just mastering poops as she was withholding.
They all get there.

I didn't - I'd read about puppy training that if you reward them for doing a wee outside they learn to do lots of little wees to get lots of treats. So I assumed toddlers were pretty much the same as puppies and would do the same - 'look Mummy, I've done another wee on the potty!'

I reckon if OP's child knows when he is doing a wee, but doesn't yet know he's just about to, then it could be a matter of timing rather than stubbornness. That's when you'd try and be more in-the-moment about getting him on two seconds before he wees, so he can make the association between the feeling of needing to go and the act of going on the potty.

If he does know that he needs a wee but just doesn't want to be told to do it, then this strategy of stopping taking him and leaving the potty available could work. My DS had a regression after he was potty trained and pissed all over his shoes multiple times because he was finding it annoying to be prompted at nursery. So we asked them to stop prompting him and it resolved itself straight away. However, that only worked because he already knew how to tell he needed a wee.

I didn't use rewards either. But I waited 'til they were each definitely showing signs of being ready.

I did make it a fun time, though, not a chore. Positive reinforcement wherever possible.

What's your way of potty training op?
We are on day 3, very few accidents but I'm basically training him on a timer, with a big song and dance when he gets it.

I found my own posts on here from 5 years ago when I trained my DD which was quite nice, because I was despairing still on day 8 and then suddenly she got it. My memory is that she trained really quickly as well, I've definitely told people she 'picked it up straight away'- not according to my Mumsnet posts!!

I think there's a lot of pressure that somehow potty training is something that a child can get after a few days. But I'd definitely lower your expectations. It's a process and one that can take a while but I'd definitely persevere and not give up.

Like you I took a weel off work and then my husband the next and it took us about five days until we got one wee in the potty and even by end of the 2nd week we were still getting a few accidents a day but we still committed to no nappies during the day and even during this time, we still went out with just about a million spare pair of pants. Our nursery were brilliant and helped him encourage him on the toilet and again sometimes he would go but most days he would need a few change of clothes.

It took about a month until we were at a place of him asking each time to go to the toilet and no accidents and I'm glad we persevered. Yes it was frustrating but I just reminded myself it was a process and he would get there eventually. I found the Eric website really helpful and it was mainly that I would refer to.

Thanks everyone for your advice/suggestions.
Just to answer some questions/clarify things.

DS has to be potty trained for montessori in September. It's a requirement here. They have to be comfortably out of nappies so I'm eager to persevere to allow time if a regression were to happen during the summer.

I am 100% all for bribery 😅 We were originally doing the Oh Crap method but with treats. When, after 3 days, this just wasn't working, we started to encourage him on the potty every half hour or so. He is just surprisingly head strong, though. The stickers (and he LOVES stickers) weren't cutting it. The chocolate he wants so badly so I can see the struggle in his head, but he will consistently sit on the potty until he feels the wee coming and then jumps up and goes on the floor 🙈

I can recognise his signs. I have tried waiting until the last minute and carrying him to the potty but he is SO STRONG. He locks his knees and holds the potty between his feet so I can't get him down. all the while laughing his little head off at me.... and then wees on the floor 😓😓😓

I do think he is playing/messing with us but ai want to give him the benefit of the doubt..... this is getting harder though.

We really thought he was showing signs of being ready. He's been very interested in the whole process for ages now (this is just the first time I've had enough time off work to try) Here also HATES getting his nappy changed so I really hoped he would be excited about that being a thing of the past.

I know Oh crap has a chapter about behaviour v potty training and being strict and making them sit on the potty but DS just isn't the type of kid to take a stern voice seriously. He thi ks it's so funny if we get serious or raise our voices 🙈🙈🙈

I'm so worried if we wait until the start of the summer he will be even more head strong by then but I obviously d0nt know ow how long I am willing to/am physically able to work wise give it this time....

My rule is, if it's not done in 2 days stop and go back another time! Potty every 20mins, chocolate button when something goes in potty.

2 days! I'm on day 4 here and it's not done.

Lol. I'm no nonsense, literally do nothing for 2 whole days of potty training. 3 kids, worked every time!

Hmmm it sounds a bit like maybe he is enjoying the attention of being silly about it?

I would incentivise it,I can see that you need a wee, if you do your wee on the potty there will be a choc button and then no other words, no fuss no negotiating. Leave the potty or toilet accessible and walk away.

If he wees on the floor, in his pants he helps to clean up and change himself. No negative words, oh dear we need to clean this up.

no going back to nappies, you don’t have nappies now that you’re ready to do your wees on the potty. Make it part of the routine, you need to try for a wee before we go to the park. Wets outside the door on the way, oh dear well have to go home and get changed because you’re wet. Natural consequence.

I wouldn't say two days but this posters general idea is accurate. When they're ready it really shouldn't take much more than a few days to make progress. If they've not cracked it by day 5 then I would agree to taking a break otherwise it just becomes a battle and as we all know with children this age, grown ups will back down before they do.

If he's still not making any significant progress today OP even with the bribery then I would give it a break and try again later.

I appreciate you're constrained by time pressure but if he isn't grasping it then you'll just spend all this time before he starts preschool stressed and changing wet pants. Give it a month and try again, it's amazing how much they can change in just a few short weeks and September is still a while off yet, he has time to get this sorted.

I've been doing that! It is potty training boot camp here. I've got the week off work for the joy of this experience.

Don’t pause it — it’ll make it harder when you revisit. 3 year olds are very strong willed so you will experience power struggles as he adjusts to this new normal. Just keep persevering. Is he totally naked from waist down? That was the best way for us to get our son to pee in the potty — pooing took longer as he feared it and took a few months to adjust.

I would stop and try again on the summer. Both of mine took to it straight away with zero accidents because we waited until they were 100% ready. I had other friends battling for two weeks with constant pooy and wet pants because they thought their child should start potty training not because they were fully ready to.

This is an excellent resource: www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/oh-crap-potty-training-book-jamie-glowacki-9781668079553

Just to say, oh crap is often recommended. I’m sure it works brilliantly for lots of children but I also know lots that it didn’t work for and actually hindered their progress significantly in different ways. You have to go with gut on what will work for your individual child. Follow your instinct.

I liked Oh Crap but I think it's most helpful to read the whole book (as it sounds like you have, OP) as the explanations about why her method is the way it is are probably the best bit. There's also a huge caveat about how you don't have to follow it to the letter because you know your child best. When we did it, for example, we did loads more build-up and pre-explanation than she recommends because we know DS1 doesn't like surprises. I think it might be worth another go for you @MomBiz because you did it with treats, which sounds like it's not been working for you, so if you were to follow the book you'd take a break then start again without.

It depends on what you think is motivating your DS. For me, the problem with bribes is that they kind of make going on the potty optional: if you want a chocolate button, you do a wee in the potty. Therefore if you don't want to wee in the potty, you can just choose not to have a chocolate button. My DS's mind totally works this way - last year he didn't like having suncream put on him. So he wouldn't even bother saying 'I don't want suncream', he would just announce 'I don't want to play outside'. Even though he loves playing outside. I imagine he would probably manage to convince himself he didn't even like chocolate buttons.